Elseworlds: Sky Child
by VampireHunterDragoon
Summary: The origins of Earth's Greatest Hero.


**ELSEWORLDS:**

 **SKY CHILD**

Note: This is the reason why it's taken me such a long-ass time to update The Light In The Abyss. Hopefully, it's worth it. (Um, quality is greater than quantity? [This kid is no Stephen King...]) Working on the next chapter of LIA!

 **EARLY 16TH CENTURY**

 **WHAT IS TODAY AMERICA**

Blue Crow and Brave Water walked back to their home through the woods, as had become their custom for the past few months. Neither one spoke to another, as had also become their custom following whatever meeting they had held with Grandmother Mooncrest, the village shaman. Crow kept silent despite smoldering, aimless anger out of consideration for his poor wife; Water held her voice, knowing that she needed to choose her next words carefully lest she say something unwise and make a bad situation even worse.

Water glanced at Crow, carefully studying him, confirming what she already knew. There was no reason that they should be in the position that they were in. They were both young, healthy, and eager. Blue Crow, especially, was having a very difficult time accepting this fate. Crow was far too dynamic to let life dominate him: he always felt the need to hold his own against the whirlpool of Destiny, to conquer the mountains set before him. At worst, it frustrated him when smaller problems occurred, like when the crops turned out smaller than hoped for or when the buffalo did not gather as often because at least then the problem was clearly identified, at least then there was a good chance that a solution could be devised. Here, there was no clear problem and here there was seemingly no chance to improve the crops or to summon more buffalo. For someone like Blue Crow, not being able to solve the problem despite always doing his best was one thing. To not be able to solve the problem precisely because he didn't even know what the problem was, however, quite another.

Physically, there was no reason why this malady should befall Crow. Crow was as eager as he had always been, the last few months even more so, frustration and anger giving him enough energy to engage Brave Water several times a day. But only in the last few days following their decision to visit Grandmother again had his anger now begun to seemingly feast upon himself, draining him of vitality, making his performances increasingly utility without finesse, purpose without skill. Still, Water knew it wasn't Blue Crow's fault. Without any sign of vanity or preening, Crow had acquired one of the best physiques in the village, to him a relatively insignificant result of his predilection for the hunts and for wrestling matches. However, Water would never have thought of Crow as deserving the right of lineage due to his body alone, still alluring to women, still the cause of more than one surreptitious gaze.

Despite his athletic build and combat skills making him one of the tribe's most ferocious defenders, Blue Crow was the kindest and most loving man Water had ever had the privilege to know. Good fortune then was upon Brave Water, for this man who eagerly played with the dogs, who fascinated the children with his fables, who gave generous amounts of his own time towards aiding the elders, good fortune then was upon her, for she was lucky enough to have Crow as her husband.

But, as they had learned once again, they were not lucky enough to bear children, and once again they had no idea why. For months on end now, they had tried to couple, even more so than when they had fist decided to become married, scarcely more than two years ago, when their own passion burned like a raging fire. Not that couplings had lost any of its enjoyment for either of the two of them, far more that they had learned from experience to control their desires and to make their bliss last, mature adults savoring their tobacco while the not-quite-children-not-quite-adults sucked upon the Peace Pipes like fish gasping for air. Was that not a sign of their maturity? Was that not a sign of their sense of responsibility? Was this not sufficient proof that they knew flesh as well as spirit, that there was more to life that couplings and food and the comforts of the pipe, that they believed in the beauty of life enough to want to create one? Brave Water thought so, in fact knew so. This was something that she had wanted virtually her entire life, the desire's seed first planted in her as she helped her parents raise her younger brothers and sisters, nurtured throughout her entire life to want it, spurred on by the love in her parents' eyes as they watched over their kin, spurred on by the smiles and laughs of her friends as they grew older and bore children of their own. She wanted a child. She was ready and responsible enough to deserve the duty of raising a child. So why couldn't she produce a child?

Brave Water did her best not to stew in her anger but couldn't help but let her feet linger in the smoking, burning, bubbling magma pool of her own discontent. Normally, she followed Grandmother's teachings, in this case the dictum that its better to rush through the thorn bushes than to move slowly and painfully through them. As of late, however, it had been far harder to follow this seemingly feasible line of reasoning.

"Its not the worst thing in the world than can happen", Grandmother had said. "But then, nothing ever is. In time, you will learn that all obstacles are merely opportunities in disguise. Do not take the easy way out and give in to dark thoughts. Think such things, and they will be bound to occur. Endure and have hope, and the dark will disappear in time."

 _Easy for you to say, Grandmother_ Water thought bitterly, immediately regretting it but venting anyway. You're in your seventies. _You've had several children, several grand-children, and even great grand-children. So why not me? Why not us?_

Brave Water turned her surreptitious gaze from Crow to herself. There was no reason, outside the often inscrutable realm of the spirits, why they could not conceive. Though not the protector Crow was, Water was strong and potent as well, able to spend over ten hours in the fields and with hunting skills superior to most of the tribesmen. Her own body was stronger and thicker than most of the women; true, she wasn't terribly tall , but with wide hips and muscled legs she knew that she had proficient strength to bear a child. Crow and Water's couplings had been more and more frequent as well, both anchored by that acute need to purge themselves of their all too common frustrations. So why this fate, why this turn for the worse? Not even Grandmother Mooncrest could say, and she was the wisest member of the village. Per usual, the shaman had reviewed the prescription, modified it, massaged Water and then told the two to trust in the will of the Great Spirit.

"Do not worry about changing that which you cannot", she had told them. "Know that life gives us nothing that we cannot bear. And all so often, that which we bear ends up making us stronger. Choose the right attitude and that strength may earn you happiness."

And as per usual, Water understood the words in only in a dim, shallow sense. She failed to feel the words once more, despite all the times Grandmother had tired to impress the total import of the philosophy upon her. Judging by Blue Crow's dour countenance, the wisdom had failed to affect him as well.

"You are both young" Grandmother had told them. "You will see, in time. The All has meaning, and you have purpose."

Brave Water was disappointed but not surprised by today's dismal results. This same outcome had repeated itself far too often to throw her off guard. Blue Crow was probably not surprised either, but seemed to be the one having the most difficulty, judging from his countenance. The scowl on his face was small but spoke volumes. Perhaps it was because such a look was rare for Crow: even in his most challenging endeavors, Blue Crow always possessed that attitude that something good and worthwhile would result from it. Here, seemingly nothing could be gained from the bleak situation. His was a rare, fatalistic anger that could only be born of a rare, fatalistic predicament.

Water closed her eyes, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth as quietly as she could, preparing herself to console her husband. Brave Water was willing to accept defeat if only to make the pain of their infertility all the easier to bear. Water knew how to let go of things; Crow had a harder time at it. But then again, that was what she always loved about her husband: his stubborn resistance to allowing bad things to happen to good people. A small part of her feared that this enormous loss might make him a weak, old man before he was ready to be, might slash his heels and force him to live as a dead man, inching little by little until eventually crawling into his grave. The very thought made her shudder.

"Crow, I won't lie about being disappointed, but I can live with this," Water began. "There's still plenty of other children in the village for us to help raise. We still have our younger siblings, nephews, nieces and the children of our friends. And as time goes on, there will always be more and more children being born, so we'll always have some in our lives."

Crow glanced sharply at Brave Water with narrowed eyes, as if preparing to deliver a sharp retort. However, he seemed to think better of it and turned his face away to stare below near his feet.

"It's not the same," he muttered sullenly, staring angrily at the ground as if it should affirm his opinion. "I don't know what to do with this one. I truly do not."

"All we can do now is put our trust in the Great Spirit like Grandmother says", Water replied. "It wouldn't allow this to happen to us unless some greater good could come out of it."

Crow narrowed his eyes even further upon hearing that. Brave Water began to fear that Crow would lose his temper and would begin to lash out by shouting: Water was the more patient of the two, but even she had her limits. If he snapped, then eventually she might snap, and then they would both spend unbearable moment after unbearable moment snapping and yelling and screaming at one another and make a bad day even worse.

But Crow didn't yell. Instead, he just stared intensely at the dirt and the grass and the leaves, as if there was something just on the tip of the tongue and ready to leap out of his mouth. Still, he did not speak immediately. Water knew Blue Crow ever since they were both babies, and as the boy turned increasingly into the man, he had learned more and more on when to hold his tongue, as a respectful person ought to. Because of that, the longer he stood at the forest's floor, the more certain Brave Water became that Blue Crow was mentally debating whether to say what was on his mind or not. Water began to dread whatever the next moment would bring.

"I don't think I believe in the Great Spirit anymore", Crow said at last.

"Crow!" Brave Water said, attempting to sound shocked and failing at it. She sounded only weary; similar doubt had torn at her spirit little by little ever since she had first learned of her barren state.

"It makes no sense!" Crow said, turning away and flapping up his arms in bewildered exasperation. "Grandmother Mooncrest says that there is an order to things, that we get out of life what we put into it! Well, we've put plenty into it! We've worked hard! We've treated the animals and the children kindly! We've paid tribute to our elders! We've done everything that we were ever told was good and right and when it comes to the one thing we want and need, we can't have it!"

Brave Water looked down towards the leave-scattered ground. There was nothing that she could say in response: Crow had said all that which she had done her best to ignore, all that which she had hoped she had shoved down deep inside her self, where no one, especially herself, would be able to see it. She knew now that she had failed. She had no idea what to do anymore and wasn't even sure if she could go back to her old way of life like she had as a younger girl. Without faith, without hope that things could get better, without that female ability to produce the miracle of life, what was the point in going on?

Blue Crow paused, staring at Water with guilty eyes. He had done exactly what he had hoped that he wouldn't do, though he had expected that it would only be a matter of time before he exploded. Now he felt terrible for what he had done. His heart painfully sunk, and he knew that he deserved it. Brave Water was the true victim here: she had looked forward with such enthusiasm to motherhood, and she had endured this fiasco far better than he.

Blue Crow pulled Brave Water towards him and hugged her, doing his best to make his arms firmly assuring yet genuinely comforting. She did not pull away from him as he feared that she would, but she hung her arms around him only limply. At least Crow's anger had given him some measure of energy: Water had only unsurprising sorrow, and expecting it did nothing to mitigate the draining of her vitality. Only a bleak disaster like this could rob someone like her, someone who could laugh so deeply and who could have such light in her eyes, of such life and warmth.

"I'm sorry", Crow said. "I know how hard this is for you. I know what an amazing mother you would make."

Blue Crow glanced up at the tree-crowded sky. Though his faith was shaken, he still wanted to believe. He wanted to hope, no matter how absurd it was to do so.

"If I was a father, I would do everything in my power to raise my child to be the greatest person alive," Crow said.

A sharp, piercing sound, like the sound of a storm of arrows being released from their bows all at once, filled the sky. Crow and Brave Water immediately both looked up at the source of the din.

It was too far to tell what it was for certain, but it was clear something was plummeting to the Earth. Whatever it was, it was surrounded by and had a tail of fire behind it. If Crow and Water had not been in this clearing and had been surrounded by the several thick profusion of trees, they would not have been able to see the object disappear behind the heads of the cottonwoods. However, they would have and did hear the object land beyond their line of sight with a loud _Boom_.

Brave Water and Blue Crow stiffened, then raced forward. They had absolutely no idea what it was, and it was the first time they had ever seen anything like this fall from the Heavens. Water focused only on reaching the sight of the crash and preventing whatever it was from potentially harming the tribe. Crow briefly considered the possibility that some great unknown bird dwelling high above the sky had accidentally knocked an egg down from its nest. Whatever it was, they intended to confront it and warn their kin, if need be.

After some time, they emerged from the forest, confronted with a large clearing of rounded, grassy hills that stretched for miles until it eventually began another stretch of forestry. On the hill immediate to them, lay a newly formed, thinly smoldering crater, and in it a kind of grey ball that was so unprecedented to the couple that they could scarcely describe it. Steam emanated from the mysterious object. The two stood several feet away from it, tense, ready. Though they were indeed afraid of what this might turn out to be, they had defended their tribe far too often to submit to panic. And though neither wife nor husband knew it, at that moment they both shared that uncanny curiosity to see what such potential danger truly was, for better or for worse, for pleasure or for pain, for life or for death.

The steam disappeared in time. When nothing dangerous lunged from the object at them, they gazed on it for a long time. When they were done looking at the object, they looked at one another. They allowed their eyes to do all of the talking, the same thought evident upon their faces : _What in the name of the Great Spirit is this?_

Eventually, they turned their gaze back to the issue at hand. It was a ball of some kind made out of the strangest stone the couple had ever seen, if indeed that's what it was. Symbols and letters utterly alien to Water and Crow surrounded the bizarre object. Other images looked more recognizable to the couple, even familiar. Crow thought he could make out an enormous wolf; Water was sure that what she was staring at was a rather large eagle. Curiouser and curiouser still, the images that did strike them as familiar had more than just a passing resemblance to the art of their own tribe. Yet at the same time, for all its similarities, it seemed somehow so much more... polished. What other tribe could have done this artwork? What other tribe could have made this ball fall from the sky? Was it even the work of man?

Water was far too entranced by her sense of awe to react to Crow reacting reaching towards the ball. Similarly, Blue Crow was far too numbed to do anything but find out the truth of the matter , whatsoever the cost. Past and future disappeared from the couple's perspicacity. All that mattered was the here and the now, all that ever was and all that ever would be was now in the present. They had no words to describe what they felt; what they felt went beyond all words, all ideas, all thoughts.

Crow bent down to touch the picture of the Eagle with his two forefingers and slid them across the image's material. At his own deliberate pace, he trailed his fingers for as long as he thought necessary, which turned out to not be so long at all. There was nothing there. No paint, no sand, no nothing that could be used to paint or to draw or to imprint.

"What in the world-" Blue Crow began.

A sharp, hissing sound was uttered by their ambiguous visitor. Immediately, Crow swatted his right arm, driving Water behind him. Normally, Water would have rolled her eyes at Crow's well intentioned machismo: she knew that her husband had only her best interests in mind, but he also knew that she usually carried the dagger her father had taught her to master and that he always cringed when his mother was about to scream at him for whatever stupidity he had committed. This time though she had neglected to bring her self-defense weapon of choice and could do little for now but watch. If whatever arrived was to attack Brave Crow, she would leap into the fray without a second thought. She prayed that it wouldn't come to that.

Without a single instance of clumsiness, Brave Crow's left hand immediately went for the tomahawk strapped to his back, bringing it to the front of him and tossing it to his right hand, then assuming a defense stance, the weapon raised high, ready to strike if need be.

The object opened a small part of itself, very much like a shard of the shell of an egg raising itself apart. Steam and moisture escaped from the cavity, all too much like the panting of a hungry wolf. For a few moments, Water and Crow stood still, tense but stable. Their experiences in duels and feuds were thankfully few but they had both been lucky enough to have been taught by great masters.

Nothing happened during what must have been mere seconds but felt like several lifetimes to the couple. If Crow breathed during this time (and he did), he was not aware of it. Water was skilled enough at fight or flight to keep her focus even while even still fearing what the next moment would bring. Her mother had been her greatest teacher, and she had told her daughter one of the most important things that she had ever heard in her life, that there was nothing wrong with feeling fear, that there was everything wrong with running away from that fear. That saying had been so deeply impressed upon her since her earliest years to the point where she seriously doubted that she could forget it even if she wanted to. Repeating the mantra over and over again helped make her feel strong enough to continue to stand by her husband's side, whatsoever might come.

It was upon repeating the mantra for the seventh time that she noticed something in the ball that apparently Crow didn't. He was too much to the left of the hatched egg like object to see it; Brave Water was enough to the right that she could see see a small sliver of something, distant enough to be fuzzy but close enough to be discerned if she squinted her eyes tightly enough.

She did so, and was met with the sight of something small, dark, and even... pudgy...

Brave Water felt the breath become caught in the middle of her throat. She now had a very good idea of what was in that mysterious ball, and it was because of that that she needed to get to that ball and get to it now.

Without saying a single word, Water moved quickly moved in front of Blue Crow and half-knelt, half-fell upon her haunches directly in front of the ball. Crow had yelled "No, wait, don't-" in the same moment that he imagined some unspeakable monstrosity erupting from the egg ball and devouring her whole. He would sooner brave the assault of all the wolves and all the bears of all the forests than let his wife leap into the fray of death.

No unspeakable monstrosity leaped out of the ball to devour Water whole. Moreover, by the time Crow had taken two steps to yank Brave Water away from whatever might but didn't attack her, her could already tell that her posture had been struck rigid. Whatever it was then, wasn't dangerous, but shocking. River stared at whatever was in the object, and she didn't say anything for a little while, didn't even move her body in the slightest. Crow became uneasy.

"River?" Crow asked. "River, are you alright? What's in there, can you see?"

A singularly painful moment that felt like all the air in Crow's lungs being compressed passed. River slowly turned her head to look back at Brave Crow. Her eyes were as wide as they could be, yet were somehow still unreadable.

"Look inside the basket," was all she said, as if it were the only sane decision imaginable. Crow approached with more confidence but still confused. What made her know that it was a basket, and how could a basket have fallen from the sky? Crow stepped closer and looked into the so-called "basket".

He immediately understood why River was so convinced that the object was a basket despite the fact that they had never before seen one hurtle from the Heavens.

Inside the basket were a scattered collection of what Brave Crow guessed to be stones, rocks, and tree roots. If they were, they were certainly the strangest kinds that he had ever come across: each bit was colored, had all kinds of indecipherable letters painted on them, and could even light themselves up, like the back of a firefly.

If there wasn't anything else inside, he would have spent a great deal more time studying the "foliage" inside the basket. The sight of the basket's main content (and it was clearly the main contact) stunned his mind into utter silence and complete inactivity.

A baby was inside the basket, sleeping as if it knew that all was safe and sound. It was placed in what Brave Crow assumed to be some kind of bed, with a large red and blue blanket covering the infant. The top quarter of the blanket had been pulled back so that it wouldn't fall upon the top part of the bed. There was clearly a symbol of some kind at that top quarter, but the folding obscured it, and Crow doubted he would have known what it was anyway. This basket was, after all, at least the product of inconceivable wizardry. What else could prevent the considerable effect of the collision from disturbing the deep slumber of its sole passenger?

The baby was the most beautiful thing Brave Water and Brave Crow had ever seen. However, in all honesty there was nothing extraordinarily handsome about the child. Yes, it was adorable, and in time it might very well become one of the more attractive members of its tribe... if it had a tribe. The baby looked like any person might, even like a member of Crow and Water's own clan: dark black hair, copper skin, and a particularly excellent chin.

But there was something else to the child, something that seemed to emanate from it, something both basic and essential drawing them in like moths to a flame. It seemed to register vaguely to both Crow and Water that flames could hurt them, maybe even kill them. But by then, they were already immobilized by this new sense of sublimity to pay such warnings much credence. Hurt them? Kill them? Yes, maybe. But then, what good were their lives without flames?

A large set of clouds had for moments past obstructed the rays of the sun. The clouds moved now, and the full ray of the Red Star fell upon the company. Exposure to direct sunlight confirmed further that this Son of the Sky was indeed the most stunning creature that Brave Water and Blue Crow had ever laid eyes upon, very well perhaps in all of Creation. With more light came more focus upon the nature of the babe. Water felt weak in her knees and clenched her legs as tight as she could to prevent herself from falling to her knees. Tears quietly and unceremoniously fell down the awed face of Crow without his even noticing it.

Gulping down a sizable lump of fear, Water moved the blanket to the side of the basket, making sure that this was indeed a baby and that it wasn't some kind of monster in disguise. She picked up and held the child in her arms, entranced, and somewhere far in the back of her mind it registered that if this was a monster, it would have attacked them by now. Still, both Water and Crow were far too stupefied to pay any of that much attention.

The baby had some sort of clothing utterly alien to them that they couldn't recognize for the life of them. Whatever the material was, it was surely the greatest clothing woman or man had ever come across. It didn't look or feel heavy in the slightest. Instead, it felt and looked about as heavy as the lining of a cloud. Whatever it was, it kept the baby snug like a bug in a rug; the rest of the basket was chill and cool. Brave Water had crafted many a blanket in her time, but this was clearly the warmest fabric she had ever felt, and still the baby slept as though a basket hadn't fallen from the sky, that everything was fine and wonderful and full of light and that so many lives could benefit from this teaching if they finally committed themselves to the revelation of this cosmic truth.

Most of the garment was blue, and it was the bluest blue that they had ever known, bluer even than a cloudless summer sky. In the center of the garment was what Crow guessed to be a shield like emblem, though in a shape that he had never seen before. The outer ridges of the shield emblem were red, and like the blue its depth was nearly intoxicating, like falling asleep, warm and secure, in front of a large campfire, knowing that the flame would would protect you, knowing that the flame wouldn't hurt you, knowing that because of the flame that no matter what happened, all would be right with the world. There was a dazzling yellow as well, even more yellow than the delicious corn that Brave Water and Blue Crow ate as children, listening to the elders tell the story of the Old Woman of the Spring and how she made it so that the tribe knew when and where to plant it so that there was always an abundance of it, row upon row, stalk upon stalk.

But there was something else there in that shield like emblem, something also red but a letter or a figure or something else entirely, foreign to the husband and wife and yet oddly familiar. Water squinted her eyes, hoping that focus would help her make out this arcane symbol. It looked something like:

"S".

Eventually, it came to Brave Water. It was a snake. It was a strange looking snake to be sure, the strangest snake that she had ever seen in fact, but then it wasn't everyday that a basket containing a baby fell from the sky. It had what was seemed to be a rather bulbous head and a oddly shaped tail, but it was a snake all the same, a holy creature if there ever was one, a creature that was reborn every time it shed its skin, a creature that healed itself each time it became broken, a symbol of hope that the dying and the healing and the resurrecting that occurred in the snake's lifetime, as it occurred in the lives of the fours seasons, as it occurred in the lives of all men and all women, were utterly worth it.

Water felt hollow inside as if he had no bone or blood or anything inside of her but just... air. Nothing inside of her but air, her body no longer weighed down to the ground, able to fly without wings if she so chose. She had felt something like this once before, years ago when she was a little girl and had tried the tribe's Peace Pipe being passed around when her father wasn't looking. She had spent the rest of that night stumbling, giggling, and feeling glowy inside until she eventually fell asleep. She had been somewhat scolded by her father for this the next morning, explaining that the Peace Pipe was a scared instrument used to signify treaties and truces between adults of the different villages, but his rebuke seemed to be softened by her father's unspoken recognition that the Peace Pipe was indeed greatly pleasurable. In the years since, both Water and Blue Crow had had several occasions to become inebriated by the pipe and its intoxicating tobacco and each time they had enjoyed it immensely, enjoyed the feeling of not being weighed down by any shackle or chain, enjoyed the sensation of not worrying because the herbs let them know that there was no reason to worry or to fear or to brood ever.

Compared to this one incredible moment, all those past Peace Pipe experiences paled considerably.

The baby opened its eyes shortly after the full ray of the mid-day Sun fell upon it. Without a bead of sweat, the child's face beamed with a smile that could not have been but seemed to be every bit as bright as the Sun. Again, Water said nothing as the baby reached his hands up, ostensibly to grab a finger of hers.

Neither Brave Water nor Blue Crow knew whether the baby was a girl or a boy, but they both doubted that it mattered. A wave of feelings struck the couple, baffling yet comforting them simultaneously. There was so much happening now and so much that would need to be explained, and he was but one man and she was but one woman and they had never heard of anything like this ever happening to anyone else let alone experiencing anything like this ever before.

But somehow, they both knew that none of that really mattered either. Because when Crow and Water looked down upon that child, they both inexplicably knew that everything was going to turn out alright.

It hit Brave Water like a barrage of arrows, with raw force that quickly subsided into glowing waves of certainty: this child was hope incarnate. Holding this infant and staring into his eyes and seeing in him something from Worlds and Heavens and Horizons Beyond, something beyond her wildest dreams of Miracle and Magic... it was extraordinary, but it felt right. Without anyway to prove it and not caring in the slightest, Water knew that right now, all that mattered was feeling how wonderfully divine this felt, not proving it to be so.

The baby cooed as his tiny hands gripped her finger, and that was when the breathless spell ended. .. all the anger and all the confusion and all the sorrow she had worked to purge through hunts and competitions ever since her first failures at conceiving to today's confirmation of the same condition, all that despair she did her best not to burden Crow with and which she feared she would never be freed from left her all at once, the rain shattering the Earth after far too many dry months. She wept gladly, twin rivers streaming down her radiant face, laughing as she moved her face down closer to the baby's face for him to touch. The girl had died; the Woman had been born.

Crow forced himself from his deep trance and reached inside the basket, resisting his urge to gaze upon the glorious child. There were still questions to be answered, and he was pretty sure that he was the first to ever try to seek an answer to this type of question. He took out the blanket, doing his best to study it. It didn't feel like any kind of wool or cotton or any other kind of blanket material that he had ever touched, yet, like Brave Water, Crow knew it to be by far the softest fabric he had ever touched. Moreover, he could not help but notice that both the blanket and the clothing had the same soothing blue, the same incendiary red, the same rousing yellow, the same shield crest, the same sacred snake. Wherever this baby came from, it was the most magnificent creature he had ever seen, so utterly otherworldly and yet so strangely and comfortingly familiar.

"Grandmother said that the Great Spirit wouldn't give us anything that we couldn't bear", Blue Crow said slowly, as if now only realizing the full import behind those words.

"He is our gift!" Water cried out fiercely, as if daring the world to tell her that it wasn't so. "The Great Spirit has given us this Child from the Sky!"

No voice answered whether this was so or whether this was not, but that was alright. They needed no voice to confirm the obvious, for they felt that the child was their gift, felt it so strongly that they knew beyond all doubt that he was their charge, their pride, their treasure. Brave Water and Blue Crow would take their new child home to their tribe and explain all that had occurred. And though some would fear him at first and be wary of him, all would come to know that he meant them no harm, that he meant them all safety, all glory, all grace.

In time, he would become their protector and their champion. In time, he would learn that the same light that existed within him was the same blinding light that existed within all beings. And in time, he would lead others like him to protect their Earth Mother from those that would threaten her.

But those are different stories for different times.

And so it was that in the guise of an inexplicable curse that Blue Crow and Brave Water were given the greatest miracle that they could ever ask for. They would raise the child from that day forward, they would indeed raise it well, for they knew not precisely what he was, but they knew that he was of great promise and that in time they or perhaps their tribe or perhaps even the whole Earth would have need of him and that that promise would be fulfilled for however long it took.

What exactly was that promise?

The new parents didn't know, and right now they didn't care. There would be time for all that later. And there would be time for baths and meals and hunts and harvests and dances and ceremonies later in the baby's life. For now, this new family was all that mattered.

So begins the story of Sky Child of Earth.

So begins the story of Kal-El of Krypton.

So begins the story of Superman.


End file.
